Herod: Hard to know when Diodati’s being funny

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Up and down week for Niagara Falls’ self-appointed City Comedian, Mayor Jim Diodati.

His attempt at humour — ridiculing the purported economic woes of Niagara Falls, N.Y. — in some sort of vanity video aimed at attracting American talk-show host Jimmy Fallon to the Honeymoon City bombed big-time.

Really, the joke was flatter than the winter tourism economy in Niagara Falls, Ont.

Derision came faster than Niagara Falls, Ont. residents heading across the river to buy cheap gas and groceries.

Indeed, the only thing sinking more rapidly than Diodati’s popularity States-side is the Canadian dollar.

On the other hand, the mayor told a legitimate knee-slapper this week about GO train service to Niagara.

Hamilton officials have been told by Metrolinx planners it would cost $150 million to extend commuter service 10 kilometres beyond the new James St. station to near the Centennial Parkway in Stoney Creek, and there is no approved funding for that project.

Diodati said he didn’t view this as a worrying sign for efforts to bring regular train commuter service to Niagara.

“We’ve already come up with a strategy … a way to bring the GO train to Niagara Falls sooner rather than later.”

Hilarious!

What’s that? He’s serious???

Oy.

Mind you, he did say in his comments to Sun Media that the challenges involved in bringing GO train service here is forcing Niagara officials to become more creative with their solutions.

So, I’m thinking their plan is to somehow magically levitate the train at the James St. station, fly it over Stoney Creek and have it land in Grimsby.

Makes sense. I guess.

As Niagara continues this marathon dance with the province over GO trains, I can’t decide which belief local yokels are more delusional about: that daily commuter service is imminent or that it will transform Niagara’s economy.

Niagara, with its scattered population centres and mere four provincial ridings, is competing against the population-heavy, vote-rich GTA for limited Metrolinx dollars.

Gee, I wonder who’s favoured to win that contest?

As for the transit service’s transformational powers, yeah, a minimum two-hour, one-way commute to downtown Toronto from St. Catharines and Niagara Falls, that’s the ticket for economic success.

It will probably be faster for most Niagara residents to take the GO bus to Burlington rather than a train that passes through Hamilton around Burlington Bay. Alas, a bus lacks the cachet Niagara craves so deeply.

A transportation ministry spokesman provided Sun Media with the usual babble on the state of GO train progress, or lack thereof, to Niagara. He added, however, that “in the coming months” Metrolinx will announce its phasing and implement schedule for GO Transit improvements across the network.

If Niagara is mentioned in this announcement, expect the timetable to be vague and distant enough to be essentially meaningless.

Yes, that would be a bummer. Fortunately, we’re used to these transportation study frustrations in St. Catharines.

This past week, Coun. Mark Elliott noted the eight-year anniversary of his motion to create a transportation master plan for St. Catharines. The plan’s progress over these eights years has been measured in millimetres.

Dan Dillon, the city’s head transportation guy, gave a depressing update Monday, explaining Niagara Region, the overseers of said study, feels compelled to create a new transportation model on which the master plan would be based.

The Region is in the process of preparing a Request for Proposal document that would lead to the “procurement” of the appropriate model. Only then would the march towards creating a master plan begin in earnest.

The explanation was mind-numbing, but councillors refrained from seeking clarification for fear the follow-up response would be even more mind-numbing.